Reporter's Notebook

Over at the website of the Society of Environmental Journalists, freelance science writer Paul Thacker interviews New York Times science correspondent Andrew Revkin about the challenges of covering climate change. Revkin has been on the story for two decades and his comments provide an insider's view of the "horrible place" where science and policy (and the media) converge.

For those who are frustrated by the lack of total certainty in climate science, Revkin says, effectively, get used to it:

We have to accept the idea that whatever decisions get made, they will be made in the face of persistent uncertainty. When will we begin to apply the hedging behavior that we do routinely in our life like buying fire insurance? You don't buy fire insurance because you know your house is going to burn down. But we do it routinely and our banks require us to do it. When are we going to realize that we need to apply this to other parts of our life?

Of course, as Revkin himself points out, the case is complicated by the fact that many self-interested parties exploit the uncertainties to forestall action. The piece that follows the interview ("Has Balance Warped the Truth?" -- also by Thacker) has more to say about the topic and is also well worth reading. In that story, Thacker notes that, like the tobacco companies before it, the coal, oil and gas interests don't have to win the science debate, all they have to do is sow enough doubt to bring the policy debate to a grinding stalemate. Thacker's larger point is that the media plays into industry's hands by giving equal time to the consensus scientific view and the minority contrarians. That may work well in politics, argues Thacker, but it does readers who are trying to understand the science a profound disservice.

Revkin concedes that the climate story "doesn't fit journalism's norms," but he also insists that the problem goes deeper.

After covering it for twenty years...you can write the perfect story capturing both the gravitas and the uncertainties of human-induced climate change, perfect on every level, and it won't change things. We are not attuned to things on this time scale and with this level of uncertainty. Partly because of our political system being so short term, our business cycle being so short term, and because our concerns are focused mainly on what affects my family, then what affects my community, then what affects my state, then what affects my country, and then what affects my globe. This is last on the list. It's just not registering. And maybe it can't yet.

What do you think? Is humanity equipped to confront a global crisis with so many layers of complexity and uncertainty? In the face of that uncertainty, will we be able to effect the kind of profound change necessary to head off the worst-case scenarios? Finally, if Revkin's right and the message isn't registering yet, then what will it take for the gravity of the problem to get through to people?